


Do That Kissing Thing

by amsch



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Asexuality, Drunken Confessions, Drunken Kissing, Gen, Internalized Acephobia, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:58:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4886299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amsch/pseuds/amsch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Davey has never kissed anyone. So he concocts a plan to change that, but…well, you know. Complications arise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do That Kissing Thing

 

Davey was thoroughly drunk. Wasted, sloshed, hammered, pissed…it didn’t matter what you wanted to call it, he just knew he didn’t like it. Not one bit. He couldn’t quite control his eyeballs, which was a very odd sensation, and while the pounding music had been painfully loud at first, now it just seemed like the bass was inside his skull instead of outside.  He was usually so practical, so careful, but tonight had been an exception. Tonight he was mentally ticking the boxes off a checklist, but he wasn’t done yet. Five tequila shots in, and he wasn’t prepared to check off his final box. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to do it anyways. This box was important, all caps in his mind, flashing like a neon sign:  _KISS SOMEONE_.

He was too old to have never kissed or been kissed, too old to still have vaguely romantic daydreams instead of the real thing. Tonight was the night he was taking things into his own hands, in a very non-reckless, logical way. 

 _Step one_ : Find out when your friends are going to a club and feign enthusiasm, to their confusion. Don’t mention your plan to them. 

 _Step two_ : Get drunk with assistance of said friends. Tequila is fastest and most effective, or so he’s heard. 

 _Step three_ : Find an attractive stranger, emphasis on the “stranger”. The last thing he wanted was for all his friends to know about this whole thing, because they’d never let him live it down. 

 _Step four_ : Do the kissing thing, decide whether or not you like it and proceed from there.This was the part where his brain refused to plan ahead, and instead turned into a staticky mess of nerves. Even stupidly drunk, Davey couldn’t turn off the part of his mind that was shooting rapid-fire warnings at him:  _Be careful, don’t be impulsive_. He wished he could mute it, just this once.  _Focus, David. Okay, swallow your apprehension and GET THIS DONE._

He was standing on the shallow steps surrounding the dance floor, and he could see the tight knot of his friends a few meters away. Katherine was dancing alone in the center of the group, her hair sweaty and loose, eyes closed. Jack was also dancing, somewhat less gracefully, surrounded by the other boys and the life of the party, as usual. He felt a surge of envy, not for the first time, at Jack’s ability to just let lose. Tearing his eyes away, he scanned the people near him. He focused on a girl he supposed was pretty, dark hair, nicely dressed. She looked safe, and better yet, she’d been dancing near them earlier and they’d made eye contact a few times. She  felt him looking and turned, smirking at him over her shoulder in an inviting way. He swallowed and made his way through the bodies over to her. She pulled him in eagerly, looking up at him through her lashes and pulling his arms over her shoulders. She was certainly more eager than he’d expected, making him panic a little. Her face was close to his neck now, sort of nuzzling him. He tried not to squirm away and felt a hysterical giggle rising. Now she was pulling his face towards him, her intent clear. Well. This certainly hadn’t taken much work on his part.  _Don’t flinch. Don’t pull away. Damnit, just relax, David. Don’t fucking think so much for once in your life._ He let himself be pulled down, and then, somehow, her mouth was clamped onto his. 

It felt…weird. He didn’t know what to do with his face. Should he close his eyes? Where should his hands be? His mind was racing as she pushed her tongue past his teeth, the sensation somewhat similar to a damp vaccum cleaner. There was so much sucking…now he understood why people called it “sucking face”. Her tongue was making him want to gag, and he put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her away. She looked confused, and he tried not to seem repulsed. She grabbed his arm, trying to make another move, but he stepped back, mouthing “I’m sorry,” and making vague gestures over his shoulder as if he suddenly had somewhere important to be. She looked genuinely hurt, and he spun away from her sad eyes as quickly as he could, pushing through the crown back to the low stairs where there weren’t bodies on every side. He was panting a little, and his brain seemed to be moving in slow motion and hyper-speed at the same time, trying and failing to process anything.  Suddenly, a lurch of soberness washed over him. His ears popped, a stab of pain went through his forehead, and his stomach churned again. _Oof._  This night of debauchery was over for David Jacobs. He painfully made his way over towards where he thought the bar was. He needed some water, ASAP.

“Davey! Hey, Davey.” He heard someone say, and looked up to find Crutchie sitting on a barstool less than a foot away. He was holding his phone in one hand and a fruity-looking drink in the other.

“Oh! Crutchie. I kind of…forgot you were here,”  Davey mumbled, feeling guilty.

“Yep, it’s my turn to be the mom friend. I always volunteer when they want to go dancing anyways. Are you okay?” Crutchie started poking the drunk fratboy sitting on the stool next to him with his crutch until he stumbled away. Davey sat down gratefully and laid his head on his arms for a second before he realized how sticky the counter was. He ignored Crutchie’s question and instead squinted at his too-bright phone.

“Are you playing Candy Crush?”  

“Yep. Are you sure you want to be criticizing people’s nightclub activity choices right now though?” He raised an eyebrow and gave Davey a pointed look. He groaned, realizing Crutchie had seen everything, and buried his face in his hands as the messy emotions flooded back. There was a long pause as he tried to sort through them. “Davey…I was just kidding. Are you okay, though? I wasn’t trying to be judgey or anything.” Crutchie pulled Davey’s hands away from his face, but he stubbornly refused to look up from the counter.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m such an idiot.”

“Aw, it’s not so bad. So you drunkenly made out with a stranger! Worse things have happened.”

“No! _Fuck_! You don’t  _get_  it.” His vehemence startled both of them. Crutchie set his drink down.

“Let’s go outside and get some air. Come on.” He sent a quick text to the others, slid awkwardly off the high stool and pulled Davey’s arm, levering him upright. Davey felt like his slightly-numb limbs weren’t totally being controlled by his brain, and Crutchie kept a tight hold on his hand as they threaded through the crowd and out onto the deserted street. Davey flopped down onto the curb and Crutchie followed his lead, stretching out his leg and looking relieved to get away from the loud music and smoke. The early morning air was blessedly cool and fresh, and Davey felt like he could take a deep breath for the first time in hours.

“Okay, so tell me what’s going on.”

“I have this…problem. Not a problem, just a…thing. A thing where I’ve never kissed anyone before. I’ve just never really…wanted to? Or maybe it’s that I never met the right person? So I had this whole  elaborate plan to kiss someone tonight, because I figured it was getting ridiculous. I’m 19! And I wanted to, I don’t know, prove something to myself.”

Crutchie looked thoughtful. “Prove what exactly?”

“That I’m not broken. Or unloveable…or something. I don’t know.” He felt stupid admitting his insecurities out loud. Somehow, now that it was out, Crutchie felt like exactly the right person to be telling this to. Davey was relieved that he didn’t scoff or joke like some of the other boys might have.

“So how did you feel when you kissed that girl?”

Davey tried again to sift through the ugly clump of feelings, already half-suppressed, that was currently lodged in his brain. He’d never been good at expressing his emotions verbally, even when he could separate them and clearly label each one.  “I felt…nothing. Well, not nothing. I was a little grossed out, I guess. It wasn’t like I expected. There was a lot of…tongue.” He couldn’t help grimacing at the memory of the still-vivid feeling. “Sort of like being attacked by a wet, aggressive loofah.” Crutchie laughed at his vivid description. Davey pulled in his knees and leaned his chin on them, fiddling with his shoelaces. “But now, I just feel…sad. Melancholy, maybe. Not guilty, not ashamed that I did it. I’m sad that I felt nothing. I wanted it so badly…I wanted a stupid kiss to make things clearer for me, and it didn’t. I’m still…” He gestured helplessly, tears prickling behind his eyes.

Crutchie took his hand, and for once, Davey didn’t pull away. “Davey. You’re just you. You’re not required to do things just like everyone else, or feel the same emotions as other people. That doesn’t make you broken. So maybe your experiment didn’t give you solid answers…but I think it was really brave of you.” Davey leaned his head onto Crutchie’s shoulder, curling his lanky frame into Crutchie’s smaller one. “You know, no one’s first kiss is very good. It doesn’t matter how old you are or whether you’re drunk or how many romantic movies you’ve watched. Mine was terrible. There was a chipped tooth involved.”

“How old were you?”

“I was 14. He’ll deny it to this day, but I know it was Jack’s first kiss too.”

“Oh…it was with Jack then?”

“Of course.” Crutchie sounded so confident, so assured in his relationship with Jack that Davey felt another surge of self-pity threaten to overwhelm him.

He tried not to sound as lonely as he felt as he said, “Must be nice.”

“I love him”, he said simply. “But that doesn’t mean our relationship can’t change and adapt. It’s more flexible than you’re assuming. Sometimes you only see black and white, Dave, where that doesn’t quite cover it. Sometimes there are…special circumstances.” He looked down at the dark head on his shoulder and put a finger on Davey’s chin, tilting it up so they were making eye contact. Slowly, waiting for Davey to pull away, he leaned in and raised his eyebrows. Davey nodded, a tiny movement that was felt more than seen, and Crutchie kissed him, very softly. It was gentle, warm and sweet like Crutchie’s smile and everything the other kiss hadn’t been. The ugly knot of feelings broke apart and fell away, and if Davey still didn’t know what he was feeling now, what this fluttery happiness meant, it was okay. He knew this kiss made him feel whole instead of broken, and that was good enough. He laughed, a small delighted puff of air, and Crutchie moved back. Davey smiled at him, and leaned his head again on Crutchie’s shoulder as he put his arms around him. There was a peaceful quiet for a few minutes before uncertainty trickled back into Davey’s brain.  He sat up . “But- you and Jack-”

Crutchie had seen the question coming and preempted it. “Like I said: relationships adapt. They’re flexible, open to change.” Davey’s frown started to turn into a look of recognition.

“Crutchie, I…I don’t know…”

“Nothing needs to happen right this minute. Just think about it. The door’s open. And there will be no forcing anyone to do anything they don’t want to do, okay?” He placed another small kiss on the tip of Davey’s nose. Just then, the others spilled out into the street, laughing and talking loudly, and the quiet moment was gone. Everyone looked happy, but far more worn than when the night had started, with bloodshot eyes and clothes reeking of smoke. Jack ran down the street to where they were sitting. His buzz clearly had not worn off yet.

“There you guys are! Hi! I missed you! Crutchieee they were playing this song and I was thinking about you because it’s that song you always play really loud in the car and I wanted to make you come dance but you were out here with ol’ Davey I guess! Did you have fun, Daveyboy?”

Davey tried not to laugh at Jack, who was grinning at them, and didn’t seem to notice that he was both shouting and still dancing a little. “It was an interesting night.” He looked at Crutchie and a small secret smile passed between them. “But, it ended up being really…wonderful.”  Jack looked pleased and a little confused at this vague answer.

“As mom-friend, I hereby state that we need to get you home, Jack. Actually, all of us should be getting home,” Crutchie said, eyeing the yawning, drooping group of newsies. Jack reached out his hands and pulled them both up, only swaying a little. He slung an arm around each of them and planted a sloppy, smacking kiss on Crutchie’s cheek and an affectionate hair-ruffle for Davey. “You guys are my best friends. Let’s make pancakes!”

“Sure, Jack. Sounds great.” They walked over to where a huddle of taxis were waiting and Davey and Jack climbed into the nearest one while Crutchie made sure everyone else had their buddy and was able to make it home. “Did you and Crutchie have a good talk? There’s some stuff…we’ve been wanting to ask you about for a while…” Jack mumbled, already nodding off.

“Jack-” Davey started, but he was asleep. “Some other time then.” he said, but he felt a warm glow at the prospect, rather than the anxiety he expected. He leaned his forehead against the cool glass of the window, thinking about Crutchie’s gentle kiss, and he felt hopeful. Finally, Crutchie climbed into the front seat and gave their driver his and Jack’s address.

“Let’s go home,” he said, smiling over his shoulder at Davey.


End file.
